


Empty Shells

by didsomeonesayventus



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 12:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4391417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/didsomeonesayventus/pseuds/didsomeonesayventus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes we are nothing but empty shells, and sometimes there is no way to cope with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Shells

"I'm with you!"

That was all he had been left with. Everything to his name that he didn't even trust that much. Xehanort had nothing, really. Nothing but those words.

And the armor he was wrestling from the trash in the dead of night. The owner of those words left it with him. Her. It was all he had, and even that was more comfort than nothing. How could Master Ansem throw it away like this? One of the only pieces of his history that he had? 

Xehanort wiped grime off the shiny, dark visor when he found it, murmuring, "With You... You said you were With You..." That wasn't the name. Some part of his heart shook its head; that wasn't the name at all. Not even close. But With You was there anyways. With him. He was saving her after all. He was always going to save her. Always going to protect her.

He quietly fished out the rest of the armor. When he had it all, every piece that he somehow already knew, he began taking it to one of Radiant Garden's many fountains. It huddled in his hands, quivering. With You was terrified... of what he couldn't place. Maybe being abandoned like that in that disgusting heap of garbage. Maybe him, but why would it be scared of him? "I'm here... And I won't let you go." Xehanort murmured. Absently he added, "You won't escape my grasp again."

In the fountain's water- shining like moonlight because the lights had been turned on to fight the dim cloak of shadow -With You shone, the white streaks of light trembling as the cold metal was cleansed.

...

It had been a few years. Xemnas rubbed the throne in the center of this wearily familiar room as he sat down with his customary greeting, "It has been far too long... Friend."

The armor didn't reply. He had stopped calling it "With You" ages ago, realizing it was just the misnomer of an addled amnesiac. Friend worked better, but still wasn't quite there. It was at least more convenient to say. It never seemed to care about what Xemnas called it anyways.

"I have found it..." Xemnas said after a long pause for the reply that would never come, "The world we once called... home."

The armor didn't stir.

"Friend... We can find our missing piece."

The room's designs pulsed with a soft light, sending ripples across the cracking, dusty metal.

"The chamber."

Nothing moved.

Xemnas nodded, "We will need more members, but we will find it."

He stood and left.

...

Another day he returned. After his greeting, Xemnas added, "Today I bring the most auspicious news. We have reached thirteen."

The armor had significantly degraded over the years. Dim and cracked with rust creeping into place. It almost looked like it was bleeding in some spots.

"The boy's name is Roxas... But it does not match his face." Roxas was not Roxas in Xemnas's eyes. Perhaps a pawn, perhaps a boy he once knew. Something was familiar about the dim, intense gaze of navy and the curls of dark blond hair. Perhaps once upon a time his eyes shone like a starlit sky and his hair was the color of sunlight. But Roxas was not that boy. The slumbering boy that was just a dreamlike memory within his head.

"The chamber also eludes our grasp."

The armor still said nothing.

...

Sora leaned over the edge of the pit. His eyes narrowed considerably, mouth opening into a small, small grimace.

"How long was this here, Leon?" He asked the man standing next to him.

"Just found it." Leon replied. "Aerith was the one who discovered something fishy on the computer's activity history. We asked Tron for the admin password and when we didn't get much with that we asked for recent history." He folded his arms, scar furrowing with his brow, "And then when we investigated that... Nothing still and a lot of questions. Tron had to do a little code-breaking, and Tifa helped with that. Eventually this happened."

"And you have no idea what it is." Sora stood. He didn't know where the downwards spiral ended up in the darkness, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. 

"We've kept it open. Not a thing has come out." Leon said.

"Well that's better than Heartless everywhere." Sora shrugged. He looked over, "Lea, Aqua, come on."

Lea had been incredibly antsy since coming. He nodded and lumbered forward. Aqua rolled her eyes and sauntered up to Sora, "Why? The place is empty, isn't it?"

Sora shook his head, "Nothing coming out doesn't mean empty, and empty doesn't mean useless." He then tilted his head, "Lea, you okay?"

"Xemnas used this place." He mumbled, "He had explicit orders that no one was supposed to follow or disturb him while he was here. Who knows if he's still using it?"

Sora's face dropped into shock a moment, and then he nodded, "All the more reason then." He waved his hand forward, "Come on, troop!"

Aqua made a soft noise that could've been taken as the child of a gasp and a laugh, "It's like you forget I'm the actual Master here."

"Hey!" Sora jokingly yelled. "Now, just because I became a Keyblade Master..." His hands fumbled in the air a bit, "Like, twelve years after you, doesn't mean I'm not a real one, okay?"

Aqua sighed, "You're just missing a lot of information."

Sora shrugged, "Happens, I guess." He turned around, walking backwards, "You've missed a lot, too, Miss I'm-too-good-to-be-ordered-around."

Aqua laughed, "Excuse me?!" She sighed, "Sora, you've changed so much and so little..."

Sora grinned, hands behind his head. Aqua felt a pang of longing for Ventus to be here, but he had run off with Roxas and Riku to investigate elsewhere. Kairi, Donald, and Goofy took up another group rounding up the Princesses of Heart to protect them from harm. King Mickey was who-knew-where. But Sora and Lea was the group she had been handed. She could put up with it. Besides, she had questions, and these two could definitely answer.

"Sora, who is Xemnas?"

Sora's mirth flickered. He shook his head, "Rotten leader of Lea's old crowd."

"Superior of the In-Between, Number One, Leader of Organization XIII," Lea added with a sardonic ring, "and he never let anyone forget it."

"But I thought the leader of Organization XIII was Master Xehanort..." Aqua said, remembering her briefing with Yen Sid, Riku, and King Mickey.

"That's the TRUE Organization XIII!" Sora corrected. "Don't worry, that got me, too."

"Right..." Aqua murmured. Twelve years never felt like twelve years. Not in the Realm of Darkness- that felt like only months -and not now- this was ages and dynasties beyond her time.

Sora continued rambling about his experiences with Xemnas, and that turned into a conversation with Lea. A tennis match of words where atrocities were the ball and every time one got a step above the other in terrible experiences they got a point. There wasn't really ever a set match, though.

The ramp finally ended, and Sora stopped. Lea kept walking, oblivious and lost in his rambling, but slowly he realized what he was walking between and he stopped.

"Cells..." He whispered.

Sora grabbed at one of the chains wrapped upon the doors and pulled himself up to peer in through the barred window. "What? Who? W-why are these here?" He whined. Aqua winced at how confused and troubled the words were. Sora backed up, his face bending like flowers in the wind, "Why would anyone need this?"

Aqua walked down the hall while Sora and Lea proceeded to open every door they could. She knew answers were elsewhere. Or maybe not here at all. It depended on what else they found. The door at the end of the hall was different. The door at the end of the hall was a lead.

Aqua paused in front of it, warily eyeing the black chain designs upon it. She summoned her Keyblade and turned around, "Sora, Lea, I have a feeling about this do-"

The door opened behind her with a quiet hiss. She whirled around, wildly slashing her Keyblade. When there was nothing but an empty room, she relaxed with a deep sigh.

Sora dashed up to her, "Aqua? You okay?"

"Fine." She curtly replied. Twelve years with noting but Heartless as your companion did that kind of thing to you. She lingered in the entryway as Sora pushed forward. Lea lingered with her, gnawing at his cheek.

"W-we really aren't supposed to be here." Lea whispered, "I don't know how mad Xemnas is gonna be if he finds us, and I don't want to find out."

"Xemnas isn't gonna find us!" Sora laughed as he sat in the throne. He jumped when the room lit with chains and Nobody sigils. He got off the throne, looking around and watching the pulsing light as he backed up.

Something banged into his foot, and Sora whipped around and summoned his Keyblade. After looking around a moment, he looked at his feet and gasped. Armor, worn by age, but in an uncannily familiar shade of blue in an equally familiar shape. A Keyblade was stabbed into the ground next to it.

"Aqua...?" Sora didn't know what else to say.

Aqua finally walked forward, her eyes locked on the armor. HER armor. She stopped next to it, fists trembling. She then knelt, and picked up the helmet. Her touches repaired the spiderwebbed cracks along the dark visor, and made the dull blue metal shine more like the set upon her shoulders. She was its owner, finally returned. Aqua put it down, and the damage returned. She didn't know what to do with it.

Sora picked up the Keyblade, fussed with it a moment, then flipped it around and held the hilt to Aqua, "This is also yours, I presume?"

Aqua looked at her old Keyblade. She didn't know what to do with Eraqus's, she had had it so long, and she didn't want to dismiss it. Her had held her sweet, familiar Rainfell anyways, and in a burst of light returned to exactly as it was. Master's Defender became a keychain in her hand, and she held it tight.

She looked back at her armor. What was she supposed to think of this?

"Can you use that?" Lea asked.

Aqua stood, snapping, "Of course I can." Her hand hovered to her shoulder's armor, but instead of using it she hesitated and settled with holding it. "H-how long? Do you know how long?"

Sora shrugged. Lea tugged at his scarf, "Well... When I was a kiddo there was rumors... About the new apprentice. How he made a secret room and hid something in it." He looked at the armor, "Guess I know what it is now."

"How long ago was that?" Aqua asked.

"That was.... Hmm, before I became a Nobody. Probably over a decade."

This entire time. She had left her armor to save Terra, to protect him, and it had been rotting away here all this time. It was only visited by a man she barely knew of, and nowhere close to a positive light. Aqua banged her shoulder, and the armor sprung to life to encase her once more. In a flash, Aqua was hidden behind the metallic suit that was suddenly good as new.

"Cool!" Sora grinned. He stopped when Aqua turned to him. Even with the dark glass over her face, Sora could feel her glaring at him.

Aqua then turned around and marched out. No one saw the confused tears on her cheeks. She surprised Leon when she walked out, and if it weren't for her reflexes she could have been seriously injured by his surprised strike.

Aqua summoned her Keyblade glider and left Radiant Garden.

The charm she had made so long ago sat in her hand, and in the quiet of the Lanes Between she sobbed, "Terra, were are you? What happened to you?"

**Author's Note:**

> I want them to find the Chamber of Repose and have a lot of feelings result from that like WHAT DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU FIND OUT YOUR ARMOR HAS BEEN SOME CREEPY ATTACHMENT POINT FOR A EVIL GUY YOU BARELY KNOW


End file.
